From the first time picture appeared on the internet, the anti ipod brigade touted it as an ipod killer, after all it was sleeker, lighter, had a longer battery life. It seemed the perfect package, and now it touted MP3 Support.
Alas, the NWHD3 is not the ipod killer many wished for due to a number of factors that consumers have raised, but Sony has ignored. Nevertheless I'm still a relatively happy customer.
The NWHD3 is supplied in a box with a few bits and piece in it - a USB cable, a bulky charger (why for such a compact device did sony bundle this monstrosity), Sonic Stage 2.3 CD, Quick Start Guide, 1 pair of very cheap headphones (dispose of immediately) and a fabric case which is nothing short of useless. Just on the
headphones - update to a deacent pair and your ears will thank you for it! My current pair are sony EX71's.
Instructions are basic, if you want to know how to find out how your player works, best go and install the CD and get the instructions in PDF format.
First things first - i should state straight off that because Sonic Stage is quite awkward to use when importing MP3 collections (it leaves them scattered all over its filing systen and not in any particular order) you should arrange any mp3's you have into albums or get windows media player to identify them, as this will aid organisation - files are grouped first by artist and then by album.
Primarily the HD3 is aimed at people with huge CD collections who would like to carry their collections in their pocket, and with 20 Gig,thats certainly feasable. Pop in the CD, let sonic stage rip the CD in one of three resolutions 256, 64 or 48 kbps. I would advise you to avoid the 48kbs as depreciation in sound quality is acutally noticeable. Following this, sonic stage will nip off, connect to the internet and download track infomation. All very standard stuff.
Now the software being supplied at the moment is sonic stage 2.3, which i found gave horribly slow transfer speeds. An upgrade to sonic stage 3.0 (japan have 3.1)which has been promised by sony europe since march will speed thins up tremendously. If you dont want to wait forver for the european version i advise you to download from the Sony USA website and get a registry hack from one of the minidisc forums that are online - it will enable you to use COnnect Europe - sonys online music shop.
The player itself is fairly simple to operate, there are three buttons at the top of the player, the first allows acess to settings, the next how the player seaches for music and the next is the volume up and down key.
In the centre the player sits a large D Pad which most of the navigation is done through, click right to enter a menu and left to exit. Click the centre to select. Easy enough. To seacch click the second button on the top and you can pick by Album, Artist, Genre or from some 100 bookmarkable tracks.
Anyone whos a fan of the IPods playlist feature will be disappointed that the sony doesnt support anything like this at all.
One of the strange things is that while going in and out of menus, there is a 1-2 second pause as the hard disk spools up for action. Not a major point, but one worth noting.
Sound Quality - european models of the player come with a setting called "Sound Pressure" turned on. This limits the volume. A simple hack which requires the pushing of buttons in a certain order will rectify this. Otherwise the HD3 may be a little quiet for your liking.
There are a few settings for tweaking sound - bass trebble etc. Note that only some of them work when you are playing tracks in ATRAC, and not on MP3.
Battery life is good - i get around 12-15 hours with alot of skipping and on 64kbs. Not the claimed 30, but that figure was based on maximum compression and not a mix of MP3 and ATRAC.
To sum up - the NWHD3 is step in the right direction, its for people with huge CD collections that would like a compact player with distincltly longer battery life.
One final thing - the HD3 doesnt include a remote control. Shame really.
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
It's native MP3 player, hope understand what I mean.
andyjarvis 02.08.2005 13:35
Great review, I was looking for my wife an mp3 player and now we have out the HD5 which i bought hopeing what you say is bad would have improved and they are still not all the way to killing the Ipod, Oh well, I think i may review the HD5 this evening to ward people off!!
TheFirstEscapist 14.07.2005 20:30
Nobody in their right mind listens to music at anything below 64kbps. And I will again disagree with your view on disposing of the headphones (earphones ...whatever!). OK - they're not high-end headphones, but equally they're not budget. I compared them with headphones from Shure and Sennheiser and I was still impressed. They're clear, have a good bass response, and excellent stereo imaging for what they are - and that's earphones! Your EX71s are quite good - but the cord is WEIRD on it.
I bought this MP3 player in Japan so already had the latest SonicStage version.Also - I'm not quite sure how you managed to get so little battery life. But it's certainly better than my old iPod!
However as an MP3 player - it does it's job very well. And it's not an iPod killer -but we all know that the reason the iPod is popular because of its looks (and marketing) not because of its functionality and battery life!
Nice review as well by the way!!
Advantages: Great design, hi-quality sound (Better than iPod), easy to use, smaller than iPod, better software than iTunes. AMAZING battery life. Disadvantages: Menus on Walkman if you have a lot of albums to get through - are a little bit time consuming to navigate.
Advantages: Excellent sound quality, large capacity, good battery life and convenient size Disadvantages: Awkward to use software and low maximum volume
Advantages: Great design, hi-quality sound (Better than iPod), easy to use, smaller than iPod, better software than iTunes. AMAZING battery life. Disadvantages: Menus on Walkman if you have a lot of albums to get through - are a little bit time consuming to navigate.
Apr 18th, 2005
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